I’ve never been one to highlight personal certification, accreditation, education, and other monikers that are supposed to suggest credibility in a given field. Especially in marketing, what you learn in college doesn’t translate directly to job qualifications. You can have a marketing, advertising, or public relations degree and not be very good at any of them. The reality of practicing those disciplines is what makes you better at them (some still more worthy than others). You also won’t see awards hanging on our office walls or fronted on our website or other marketing materials. We’re proud of our work, but we are all about what we’re doing today and tomorrow, because yesterday’s over.
I respect, but am fearful of Google. I can’t imagine a more powerful entity other than the government of the largest countries in the world.
So, what does one have to do with the other? Well, VI is officially a Google Partner. That means that we have personnel that have earned official accreditation from Google. And by meeting Google’s high standards of practice as an agency, VI received a badge as well. We are not in bed with Google in any way- ‘partner’ is their word for it, not ours.

I am proud of our personnel who not only had to pass multiple exams in order to gain their status, but had to perform daily in order to be officially recognized. This is different from the education that I mentioned above. For those, you can suck at what you do, but still be certified, degreed, or accredited because you passed a test. Not so with this Google stuff. So, I am asking for these certifications to be proudly displayed on our website. It means that we are very good at the digital work that is crucial to being a good marketer in 2014. And very few full-service marketing firms in the US can claim the same accreditation. At VI, we practice what we preach.

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VI SEO Strategist, Mathew Barnett, has been certified as a Google Analytics Qualified Individual and Digital Strategists, Clancy Bryant and Scott Goke are certified Google Professionals.VI Marketing and Branding is a Google Partner.